How ‘Last Man On Earth’ Evolved Into One Of The Most Emotional Shows On TV
Please watch this show with me, the fandom is four people and a shoelace, but it really is good I promise.
The Last Man on Earth previews: Look at us! We’re a fun, wacky comedy about a guy doing hilarious stuff that he normally couldn’t do!
Episode 1.01: Phil nearly commits suicide due to loneliness.
The Last Man on Earth Episode 2.09: Okay, we’re a group comedy now! Look at how funny and awesome these characters are! Sure they’re fighting, but they’ll all make amends in the spirit of Christmas! Look at how happy everyone is!
Episode 2.10: Phil 2.0 dies on the operating table while the mother of his unborn child watches, and her best friend performs the failed surgery.
The Last Man on Earth episode 2.13: Phil’s brother Mike is back after a near-death experience leaving the space station! Watch as the two of them hilariously prank each other to work out their issues
Season finale: Mike has made up with his brother, is gonna be godfather to Carol’s unborn child, is dating Erica, but WAIT now he has the virus. He leaves the group and his dying wish is for his brother to not have to watch him die. Phil returns home devastated and is immediately faced with 3 other virus survivors come to probably kill them all.
I still can’t get the finale of The Last Man of Earth out of my head. After all that speech-giving and piss-taking and I’m Not Saying Goodbye To Him Again – ing Mike dies (well, almost certainly dies) anyway, which is my least favourite kind of fictional death and makes me terribly sad. I never even meant to become invested in any of those people; I hated a lot of them not so long ago. Sigh.
Seriously though, having a whole series about the main character and his presumed-dead brother reuniting only for the brother to die two weeks after the reunion? And just as he was striking up a relationship with someone else who also deserved some happiness? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an apocalypse show be quite that cruel, and this one’s a friggin’ comedy.
I’m right there with you; this show got so much darker this season and it hurts how we saw Mike fight so hard to get back to Earth and his family, only to be infected about a week later. (This was supposed to be my comedy show, come on, and I hated mostly everyone – except Carol & Erica – at different points in the show, why am I so invested??).
The other day, randomly, in a KFC, my fiance asked “So what did you think of The Last Man on Earth?” I told him all that and about how incredibly, infuriatingly sad it was and how it totally pulled the rug out from under me, and he said, “Well, it’s not that sad. I mean, yeah, Mike is probably dead, but he got to make up with his brother first and say goodbye. Not everyone gets that.”
He’s right, of course, although I still can’t refer to the show as a comedy anymore.
That Last Man on Earth fanfic. Ha, I did it! And mostly without crying!
Title: Our Godawful Lazy Remake Culture
Rating: God knows. PG-13? It gets kinda gross in its descriptions every now and then. Also, well, you’ve seen the show
Fandom: The Last Man on Earth (TV)
Notes: The opening line is from Fredric Brown’s famous story “Knock.”
Characters/ships: Mike, Erica, Mike/Erica (well, sort of)
Summary: Mike forbade his brother to watch him die, but he didn’t forbid Erica.
Find it on AO3, or-
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1. Mike
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
Actually, most of that statement is inaccurate. Mike wasn’t the last man on Earth, although it would have been easier if it had been, and it wasn’t a knock, it was more like a pounding. He was in a room though. Hey, it’s a good opener, just go with it.
“Phil?” Mike asked. It came out as a sort of croak. It wouldn’t be Phil, he had promised. Maybe it was Death. Maybe it was the Terry Pratchett version of Death, which Mike had always hoped to be the real one. That would be pretty cool.
“Mike?” a voice called from downstairs. Whoever it was had opened the front door. Also, it was a woman. It was Erica. “Mike, it’s me.” A moment of silence. “Are you dead?”
“No,” Mike called back. It took most of his remaining strength to say that. Erica raced upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and flung the door open.
“Christ!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Oh, christ.”
“Sorry,” said Mike. He thought about making some joke about he wasn’t used to having that effect on a woman, but the words just didn’t come.
“Oh god, you do have it,” Erica said. She was wearing a hazmat suit; somehow Mike had missed this. “Oh god, I was hoping – I was hoping everyone was wrong. I had to come, I had to see-”
“Sorry,” said Mike again.
Erica was crying. “Oh god – you just look so terrible -”
“Thanks.”
“I gotta go.” And she ran out of the room.
“Thanks,” Mike said again. He actually meant it.
the-bastard-jon-snow
replied to your post “Okay thank you for making gifs for TLMOE honestly the fandom is so…”
*pounds fists on table* DO ITTT! Outgif the spambots!
Today, fanfiction! (Hopefully. It’s almost done.) Tomorrow, gifs! After that, the sky’s the limit. (Although not for Mike.)
No problem and thank YOU! I’m going to make a ton more if only to combat the spambots, heh. (Maybe the teeny fandom that does exist should make a spambot-free tag? The damn things are EVERYWHERE.) But I’m so glad to meet another fan! I love that friggin’ show so much now.
